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The Private Labour of Writing: Thoughts on Attention and Intuition

So, I’m starting to write a new novel. It would actually be more honest, or at least more accurate, to say that I’m preparing to write it. No, strike that. I am writing a novel.

In the movies, we can easily recognize when someone is involved in the act of writing a novel. They’re either leaning close over their manual typewriter, maniacally jabbing at the keys (such a workout for the fingers!), or perhaps the author appears stiff-shouldered and pecking rapidly at an electric model. Clickety clack.

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Women Writing: What Diaries Say About History and Erasure

“This is a female text, composed while folding someone else’s clothes. My mind holds it close, and it grows, tender and slow, while my hands perform innumerable chores.”

 ~ Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

A Ghost in the Throat, by award-winning poet and essayist Doireann Ní Ghríofa, is a book I highly recommend for its insightful prose that flows seamlessly between memoir, poetic verse, and historical inquiry. It tells the story of turbulent motherhood and Ní Ghríofa’s compulsive re-envisioning of an eighteenth-century woman, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, all but erased by history.

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Female Husbands & Saltblood: A Perfect Pairing of Defiant Histories

I discovered Jen Manion’s powerful book, Female Husbands: A Trans History while perusing a feminist book club’s reading list. The history of anything piques my interest. As a citizen of the world and as someone with dearly held trans people in my life, I want to learn more.

Manion (Associate Professor of History at Amherst College) writes that, “as a historian, it is my mission to try to understand how female husbands understood themselves and were perceived by others in the terms of defining gender and sexual difference than were available to them in their lifetimes.”

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Pleasures of Reading

I’m so darned happy! Today, I came across a 2021 article I wrote about our Little Free Library experience and the pleasures of reading. The piece was picked up by The Globe and Mail and an expanded version was later published by Reader’s Digest Canada.

Here is an excerpt of that article.

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Women’s History Month: Media Stereotypes Defied

Millions of women have shaped our world, but there’s limited representation of them in historical archives. These invisible women—who span differing ethnicities, regional economies, social statuses and age groups—have been reduced to passive bystanders in society.

In the essay collection The Western Women, one researcher describes how historical women been painted over with three stereotypes popularized through movies and novels. Since March is Women’s History Month, let’s look at women who defy each stereotype.

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Choosing Well

In 2011, I watched a TEDTalk entitled Stories Cut from Paper in which renowned paper artist Béatrice Coron discussed process and inspiration. Projected on the screen behind her was “Hells and Heavens”, an intricate and sprawling piece that had been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. I marvelled at the individual yet connected stories she’d envisioned and brought to life. How did she lay her vision on the paper without losing sight of perspective and skewing the images?

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Walking the Forest with Whitman

I find pleasure in revisiting an autumn reflection I wrote as the finish line to completing my manuscript for “The Last Hoffman” drew near. The forest is everything. But it’s even sweeter with Walt Whitman’s verses in hand.

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Novel Writing–Refining My Process

This growing stack of index cards will become my third novel. I recently posted on social media about how I’ve been writing plot points, research references and character profiles on them. A sweet friend commented, “Oh, that’s how you write a book.”

It is part of how I write a book—this time around. My approach to writing earlier books was different. During The Last Hoffman years, it came as a complete surprise that I was writing a book. The story began with inspired doodles, Continue reading “Novel Writing–Refining My Process” →

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Gwen Tuinman: Writer in Residence at The Lynde House Museum

Book Talk (online): July 13, 2020, 7pm

The Last Hoffman is a tale of sacrifice, betrayal and desolation rooted in a floundering papermill town where an awkward widower and a young mother band together to overcome their tragic pasts.

Gwen Tuinman will speak about the inspiration for the small-town setting of her debut novel, The Last Hoffman, and the characters that populate it. She’ll discuss her artistic process as well as the surprising mental and physical aspects of writing life. Join Gwen for a reveal of the interesting link between The Last Hoffman book cover design and The Lynde House Museum in Whitby, Ontario.

Click here for tickets. Purchase The Last Hoffman here.

Memoir Workshop (online): July 14 2020, 7 pm

There’s a story inside each one of us waiting to be written. Join Gwen Tuinman, local novelist and memoir essayist, for a discussion of storytelling techniques that can shift the recounting of unique life experiences from a documenting of facts to a riveting tale. Learn about various forms of memoir and how to structure your memories into compelling memoir that readers can’t put down.

Click here for tickets.

Writer in Residence: July 15 & 16, 11:00 am to 2:00 PM

Meet with Gwen online to discuss the details of your writing in a more personal setting. Do you need help starting your first novel? Not sure how to present a particular event in your memoir? Gwen is here to answer all of your questions! Book a session one-to-one or for a small group. Each consultation lasts up to 25 minutes.

Click here for tickets.

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